Louis Agassiz Fuertes.
Faculty: Alison Styring, Ph.D. and Daniel Froehlich
Contact: Alison Styring, styringa@evergreen.edu
Daniel Froehlich, daniel.froehlich@evergreen.edu
Description:
Birds are considered important indicators of habitat quality and are often the focus of conservation-oriented research, restoration, and monitoring. This program is intended to foster the development of a foundation of knowledge of avian biology as well as strong bird identification and natural history skills. Students will learn a variety of field and analytical methods commonly used in bird monitoring and avian research. We will link theory to practice in via a series of online lectures, data analysis workshops, quizzes, and field activities aimed at linking observational skills with data collection and analysis. Students will demonstrate their learning through active participation in course activities and assignments including weekly meetings and information sharing, field journal entries, research assignments, quizzes, and a final project.
Class Meeting Times
Monday 1:00 – 2:50 pm Online Workshop + Seminar + check-in
(No Monday meeting during week 3)
Thursday 8:00 – 11:20 am Field Work (cohort A)
1:00 – 4:20 pm Field Work (cohort B)
Friday 10:00 – 11:50 am Online Data workshop
Friday Week 5 ONLY – One additional meeting time: 1:00 – 3:50 pm Online Final Presentations
Textbooks/Readings:
- A good field guide. We recommend the Sibley Birds West by David Allen Sibley, Knopf, 2016, ISBN-13: 9780307957924 But others are also okay as long as they cover birds of Western North America.
Chapters from:
- Handbook of Bird Biology by Irby Lovette and John Fitzpatrick, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2016, ISBN-13:978-1118291054. This book is available as an e-book through Evergreen’s library
Excerpts from:
- Identification Guide to North American Birds, Part I, Peter Pyle, Slate Creek Press, 1997.
- The Photographic Companion to the Pyle Guide by Daniel Froehlich
- Other readings – posted on the program website
Learning and Assessment:
This program will cover the major topics of bird biology via assigned readings and online lectures. Students will also develop and hone bird identification skills by sight and sound. Learning will be assessed via weekly online quizzes and submissions to citizen science project (e.g. iNaturalist, eBird, Arbimon).
Additionally, we will be learning commonly practiced field methods used by ornithologists including:
surveying birds via point counts and bioacoustic methods, observation of bird behavior, habitat surveys, and a demonstration bird netting and banding. In addition to learning the field methods, students will organize and analyze field data they collect using basic statistical and visual approaches. There will also be an overview of commonly-used statistical analyses. Weekly assignments will be associated with field methods and will include: (1) a field study using the field method covered that week, (2) documentation of the field survey via a Natural History Journal entry (description can be found here: Keeping a Field Journal), (3) excel spreadsheet of the data collected, and (4) a brief report of the work and findings.
Students will complete a final project that synthesizes and communicates their learning during the program. For students pursuing graduate or upper division science credit, the project will take the form of a research project (see descriptions below). For other students, the project may focus on a topic in ornithology of the student’s choice and must incorporate from the various components of the program. Students are encouraged to consult with the faculty early regarding project ideas and plans.
Credits:
4 – Ornithology
4 – Avian Research Methods
Upper Division Science Credit:
To be awarded upper-division science credit, the student must:
- Have completed the following pre-requisite coursework: General Biology with Lab (12 credits), College-level Math such as Precalculus, Calculus I, Statistics 1 (4 credits).
- Interested students will choose a project topic, formulate a testable hypothesis, design a study to test the hypothesis, implement the study design and collect data in the field, conduct statistical analysis, and interpret and communicate study results via a scientific report and presentation.
Graduate Credit Option:
To be awarded graduate credit, the student must:
- Be enrolled in a graduate program and must successfully completed one quarter of statistics.
- Interested students will choose a project topic, formulate a testable hypothesis, design a study to test the hypothesis, implement the study design and collect data in the field, conduct statistical analysis, and interpret and communicate study results via a scientific report and presentation.